


Marked

by kaihire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M, Soulmates, key points of the story will be canon compliant, rating will increase
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaihire/pseuds/kaihire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He laughs at their strivings and rages<br/>And tosses the murmurant sphere<br/>To bowl through the zodiac-stages<br/>That measure the groove of a Year.</p>
<p>He laughs as he trips up the maddest<br/>Who scramble for power and place,<br/>But laughs with the bravest and gladdest--<br/>Fate's comrades, who laugh in his face;</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>Who laugh in the teeth of disaster,<br/>Yet hope through the darkness to find<br/>A road past the stars to a Master<br/>Of Fate in the vastness behind.<br/><a href="http://www.blackcatpoems.com/g/fate_the_jester.html">A. Guiterman</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Every child is born with a mark—the first traces of a letter etched into the skin, a letter that grows darker with every passing year. Line by line, curve by curve, it blossoms until adulthood, when it finally forms a name. </p>
<p>This name is sacred.</p>
<p>This name is a child's soulmate, foreordained before birth, immutable.</p>
<p>Meeting one's soulmate is cause for celebration, a new curve in the lifeline, an ideal in a world of infinite possibilities. And when the ideal fails, when the fairytale darkens, the results are catastrophic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. -prologue-

_ soulmate _ _**noun**  \ˈsōl ˈmāt\:_

_A **soulmate**  (or  **soul mate** ) is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural [affinity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_\(sociology\)),[[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate#cite_note-1)[similarity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_attraction#Similarity_.28like-attracts-like.29), [love](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love), [sex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex), [intimacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimacy), [sexuality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sexuality), [spirituality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality), or [compatibility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_compatibility)._

_According to[Theosophy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy), whose claims were modified by [Edgar Cayce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce), God created [androgynous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous) souls—equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred [karma](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma) while playing around on the [Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth), or "separation from God." Over a number of reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate._

_Bashert, ([Yiddish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language): _ באַשערט _), is a[Yiddish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish) word that means "destiny".[ [7]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate#cite_note-7) It is often used in the context of one's divinely foreordained spouse or soulmate, who is called "basherte" (female) or "basherter" (male). It can also be used to express the seeming fate or destiny of an auspicious or important event, friendship, or happening._

_[…] Forty days before a child is born its mate is determined upon (Genesis Rabba lxviii. 3-4; also[Babylonian Talmud](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_Talmud), tractates Soṭah 2a; Sanhedrin 22a; comp. M. Ḳ. 18b; "Sefer Hasidim," § 1128). [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate]_

_ fate _ _**noun**  \ˈfāt\:_

_Traditional usage defines **fate**  as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable" and unavoidable. Classical and European mythology features three goddesses dispensing fate, known as [Moirai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai) in Greek mythology, as [Parcae](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcae) in Roman mythology, and as [Norns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norns) in Norse mythology. They determine the events of the world through the [mystic spinning of threads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaving_\(mythology\)) that represent individual human fates. [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate]_

_ destiny _ _**noun**  \ˈdes-tə-nē\:_

_**Destiny**  is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and to that same sense of "destination", projected into the future to become the flow of events as they will work themselves out._

_In other words, "fate" relates to events of the future and present of an individual and in cases in literature unalterable, whereas "destiny" relates to the probable future. Fate implies no choice, but with destiny the entity participates in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself.[Participation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_\(decision_making\)) happens willfully. [source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny>]_

 

 

∙

 

_22 December – Year of Mars_

_Brooklyn, NY_

 

When Derek Hale was born, he refused to cry. The midwife had to hold him aloft in the chilly room and smack him once, twice, three times before his wrinkly little face scrunched up further and he let out a wail loud enough that it woke his sister—a year his senior, and sleeping in their father’s arms.

 

“It’s good that they’re so close in age,” his mother said. “She can keep an eye on him, keep him safe.”

 

“If only they would keep each other out of trouble,” his father added with a resigned tone. After all, Hale babies were not precisely known for their placid natures. He and his wife had both come from large families with what felt like dozens of kids running around—almost every week, there were new scrapes and broken limbs to contend with, though the local emergency room almost never ended up hosting a Hale. “I hope he’s calmer than his sister.”

 

The midwife lay Derek out on a towel and gently wiped him clean while he cried and fought with feeble, useless kicks. By candlelight, compliments of the latest power outage, she carefully noted down his weight and length. She described him as a sturdy, well-built baby with a shock of black hair and no distinguishing marks on his body. She then picked up his fisted left hand and peered close with a small magnifying glass that hung from a chain around her neck, the lens of it tinted a muted yellow. In the dim light, it was difficult to make out the miniscule first strokes of a letter, but she had been doing this for many years. ‘K,’ she noted in the records that would accompany the rest of Derek’s information when his parents went to file for his birth certificate.

 

When she was done, she slipped a small, stretchy cloth band over the baby’s wrist and swaddled him tight, placing him at his mother’s breast. Distracted from his temporary distress, Derek quickly settled down.

 

“Two little terrors,” his mother whispered as her husband sat down beside her. The midwife started to pack her things. “Do you suppose it means anything that he was born on the solstice, and Laura on an equinox?” The midwife shrugged, for she did not like to guess. The Hales were a unique family, to say the least, and the threads of each child’s destiny were not likely to be linear. Laura, her expression confused, reached out a chubby hand and did her best to smack Derek’s face. She would have succeeded, as well, had her father not pulled her back. “Two perfect little terrors.”

 

∙

 

_21 June – Year of Mercury_

_Beacon Hills, CA_

 

Stiles Stilinski had no desire to be born. After a week of false contractions and little dilation, the Sheriff took his wife in so the doctors could induce labor. When a day of that garnered nothing but another false start and plenty of discomfort, it was decided that a C-section was the only thing for it.

 

Stiles was not pleased. He started screaming his little lungs out before he was even clear of the womb and nearly choked on amniotic fluid in the process, so quick was he to express his utmost displeasure at being taken out of his safe, comfortable world and thrust into harsh fluorescent lights. He screamed as the doctor checked him over, he screamed as the nurse attempted to weigh and measure him, and he certainly screamed as they attempted to count all his little moles. ‘Innumerable nevi’ was finally entered in his chart, because the little weasel was refusing to tolerate any further handling. He had barely a hair on his head and was bright red from his incessant wails. His weight was normal, if a touch on the lower end of the spectrum, and he was a long baby. He kicked off any attempts at wrapping him until the nurse finally gave up and only forced him into a diaper.

 

“Perhaps he’ll be an opera singer,” the nurse suggested as she struggled to get at Stiles’ tiny wrist. He blubbered pathetically, starting to exhaust himself. She used a special scope, backlit with yellow laser, which greatly enhanced the faint lines of the letter ‘L.’ Once she marked that in his chart, the nurse covered Stiles’ little wrist with a soft, wide terrycloth bandage. He continued to fuss and refused to eat, at first, but finally came to the conclusion that he actually was rather hungry. He fell asleep still at his mother’s breast, making quiet, fussy noises whenever she tried to detach him.

 

“I guess he’s going to be a momma’s boy,” she said, and her husband leaned down to kiss them each in turn. “Did you put the pictures up online?”

 

He held up his phone so she could see.

 

“He’s already trending on Twitter,” the Sheriff said, and Stiles hiccupped. Of course he was. He was awesome, and the world needed to know it.

 

∙

 

There was an unspoken truth that philosophers, theologians, and tabloids refused to touch, but that scientists quietly attempted to slip into documentation. This truth was the fact that one’s soulmate was not always one’s perfect match in the social and romantic sense of things. A name on one’s wrist most often meant a lifetime of contentment and mutual love, a deep sense of connection, a true kindred spirit. But sometimes, though very rarely, that name simply indicated a person who would be very significant to your life. This could be a positive thing—a person who helped to heal you, a person who taught you an important lesson—and it could also be something terrible. Scientists had kept careful track ever since names started to be recorded in the national (and then international) database. Once every several million matches, a person’s soulmate was actually their worst nightmare. There was no way to diagnose this, and no way to prevent it.

 

Fate, it seemed, was sometimes a bitch. Scientifically speaking, of course.

 

∙

 

_4 March – Year of Neptune_

_El Paso, New Mexico_

 

The Argents welcome a new baby girl. Her name is Kate.

 

∙


	2. In the beginning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Absolute fluff.
> 
> Lydia makes her debut, and she's a BAMF (and none of you are surprised).

°

**_Brooklyn, NY_ **

 

By the age of four, Derek’s favorite word was “no.” No, he didn’t want to take a bath. No, he didn’t want to finish his carrots. No, he certainly didn’t want to put on any shoes. He was a big boy now, and he had his own agenda and his own plans for any given day. There was no reason his parents should have a right to dictate his activities, _especially_ not when they involved going to the doctor. Derek had a particularly virulent dislike for the doctor (much, his mother often bemoaned, like the one ratty tomcat they’d adopted years ago had a hatred for the vet) and threw the most impressive tantrums whenever he was forced to comply. He screamed so loudly that he turned purple, he threw himself on the ground with enough force to make his father wince, and he beat his tiny fists and feet against the carpet like he had a personal vendetta against it.

 

In the end, of course, his parents won out. He was, after all, four years old, and most of his grand escape schemes could be foiled by simply scooping him up so that his pudgy little legs and arms flailed about desperately.

 

He wailed on the way to the clinic. He wailed nonstop in the waiting room. He wailed when the nurse tried to get him on the scale. But he went stoically silent when the doctor came in to examine him, his big blue-green-hazel eyes wet with tears and filled with an uncanny expression of betrayal and doubt in the goodness of humanity, lower lip jutting out and trembling like gelatin.

 

He didn’t care about needles—those didn’t scare him—but he disliked being measured or handled, and he absolutely hated having the little wristlet rolled back so that the doctor could check whether any new letters had appeared. His mother had told him that the little protective band was Important, and that the tiny letter was Important, and that it was Personal, and Derek didn’t like the big, scary man with the white coat and white hair and cold stethoscope touching it.

 

He was, however, mollified by a cherry lollipop. Until next time, of course.

 

 

°

 

 

**_Beacon Hills, CA_ **

 

Stiles’ favorite word, just before his fourth birthday, was “why.” It was usually phrased as a question, but oftentimes he’d get so excited that he’d end up simply exclaiming “why!” like a self-contained statement. He was bright-eyed and always covered in at least two Spider-Man Band-Aids (his loyalty was absolute—in one week stretches—and Spider-Man had very recently ousted Batman as his favorite, for the time being) and so many bruises that once or twice his mother had gotten unnervingly compassionate looks in the grocery store.

 

He was, of course, endlessly fascinated by the letter on his wrist. No matter how often his parents asked him to keep it covered, he kept whipping off his wristlet and showing the letter to anyone who would look. He was hugely disappointed, however, to learn that eventually it would form a name. He knew what that meant. That meant _girls_ , and the only thing Stiles hated more than washing behind his ears or making sure he was peeing in the right place rather than however high he could reach was girls. They wore big poofy princess dresses and didn’t like bugs and didn’t understand the importance of mud.

 

They also tended to make fun of him for his smattering of moles and his pronounced ears. So yeah, girls sucked. That is, they sucked until Stiles met one who wasn’t actually infested with cooties.

 

Lydia Martin was the biggest, baddest four-year-old in the sandbox. Her carrot-toned hair was pulled tightly into two bushy, curly pigtails and she trailed pink ribbons like war banners. She ruled with an iron fist and surprisingly hard-toed pink-glitter shoes. When Stiles accidentally kicked his ball onto her turf, she had no qualms about claiming it as hers. And then, when he tried to grab it back, she threw sand in his face and made him cry.

 

So yeah, Lydia was totally the best person Stiles had ever met, and suddenly the ‘L’ on his wrist had positive potential—until he found out, after much hair pulling (ok, ok, _attempted_ hair pulling: Stiles would make grabby hands at Lydia’s hair and she’d shove his face into the grass, with the understanding that he never actually touch her hair and the further understanding that if he ever did, she’d shove him into dog poop, twice) that the letter on her wrist was ‘J.’ No matter how hard Stiles squinted at the letter, no matter how he turned his head, it didn’t look like an ‘S’—which his father insisted wouldn’t be the case anyway, and he didn’t want to talk about it. But the ‘J’ didn’t look like anything other than a ‘J.’

 

Stiles pretty much cried for a week. Even the promise of brownies and caramel apples couldn’t dissuade him.

 

So he got a puppy. He named the puppy Cricket, and they rolled around in the grass together and tracked twin mud trails through the house and talked to strangers and once broke a flowerpot only almost by accident.

 

Cricket helped Stiles forget his first great heartache.

 

Also, Cricket liked to sniff butts, and that was endlessly entertaining for a kid Stiles’ age. And maybe it was ok that he wasn’t going to get to spend all his time with Lydia when they got older, because she was sort of a big meanie, anyway, and besides, she was always gonna be his friend, especially if he kept bringing her goldfish crackers the way she asked.

 

°


End file.
